Taylor doesn't lack confidence in offenseRookie knows Rockets can use his scoring talent

Published 5:30 am, Sunday, July 12, 2009

Rockets rookie guard Jermaine Taylor has the belief in his shooting and scoring to carry any offense.

Rockets rookie guard Jermaine Taylor has the belief in his shooting and scoring to carry any offense.

Photo: Anna-Megan Raley, For The Chronicle

Rockets rookie Taylor has confidence in offense

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LAS VEGAS — The numbers reveal more than skills.

Anybody that averages 26 points per game on any level has some offensive skills. And as Rockets director of player personnel Gersson Rosas said in describing rookie guard Jermaine Taylor (three times in six sentences) “Scoring comes naturally to him.”

There is something else, an unshakable, unapologetic confidence, that makes a scorer.

“I've always felt that I belong,” Taylor said. “Now I get my chance to show everybody else. I think a lot of people are real excited and anxious to see what I'm going to do. I'm just going to do what I do. I step out every game, go as hard as I can and do what I'm good at.”

From the first minutes after he was drafted in the second round last month to his first seconds on the floor in the NBA summer league on Saturday, Taylor showed the sort of confidence that not only comes with carrying a team's offense, but is the only way to do it.

Playing for the first time since a pulled right hamstring forced him to miss several days of practices and Friday's summer league opener, Taylor needed about 10 seconds on the floor to put up his first shot. He missed that attempt, then hit a tough pull-up. He finished with 15 points, making six of 15 shots. Chase Budinger led the Rockets to a 98-95 win over the Dallas Mavericks, making nine of 10 shots for 25 points.

But Taylor showed off a passing ability better than advertised, though he had just two assists. Early in the game, he drove into traffic to find Joey Dorsey, Budinger and Charles Gaines (twice). Dorsey could not finish inside on one, and Gaines let one pass fly through his grasp. But Taylor went back to Dorsey late in the game for a layup.

“He's probably shown that he's a better passer than we expected,” Rosas said. “That bodes well for him in coach's (Rick Adelman) offense. His responsibility on his team (at Central Florida) was to score. Now he's playing with better talent. In our scrimmages and practices, he's shown the ability to make the right basketball play.

“Scoring comes very naturally to him. It's a different platform at this level, compared to college where he was playing. His ability to get open and get shots is very special. He's going to learn what he has to go through at our level in terms of spacing, (playing) efficiently. But he has a very strong pull-up game, very explosive to the basket. He has to tighten his handle a little bit and get more comfortable with our offense.

“He is going to put points up in a setting like this and in our scrimmages and mini-camp but I think he understands how to make the right play.”

Taylor's initial impression of the offense was, naturally, that it suits his talents, and not that different from the offense he ran in college. The Rockets only use a small portion of their offense in summer league, but he has seen enough to feel that the movement without the ball will work as well for him as when he does have the ball.

“The offense is something I believe I can excel at,” Taylor said. “I love the offense. I think I fit in real good. The offense, the backcuts, coming off screens, is what I'm used to. My goal is to go out every game, every practice and get better and show the Rockets organization they made the right pick.”

As rich in confidence as Taylor is, he also is certain that he must work on parts of his game. Though he said he wanted to make the Rockets feel good about their decision to target and eventually acquire the rights to him on draft night, he said proving himself is secondary to improving.

“They've seen me play a lot,” Taylor said. “They scouted me a lot the last two years. They know what I can and can't do. But the things I can't do are what I'm working on to get better, ball-handling, defense.”

He and the Rockets believe he will make those strides. Taylor also believes he will be able to produce when he longer is the center of his team's offense. He laughed at his draft night declaration – “Not only can I score,” Taylor said, “I'm a good shooter.” – but said he meant that he can catch-and-shoot off offense created by teammates as well as finish.

“I have it in my game,” he said. “I've just never had to show it. But I've played with guys better than me before. (He worked out with Vince Carter.) I have it in my game to play that way.

“I've had chances in my workouts, in Portsmouth (at the predraft camp), the college all-star game and now in summer league. I never looked at it that they're at North Carolina and I'm at UCF. A ballplayer is a ballplayer. I think I'm as good as they are. I do the same things they do.”